4-am to 8-am gueard shift is just the right time to throw your whole day out of wack

so who did you upset, or is it a normal routine duty?

I have been doing shiftwork for 25 years, so yes I know about throwing out your whole day. But there is a good side, its called time off. Its 12 hour shift, 2dayshift, 2 nighshifts and then 5 full days off. I coming off second nighshift at 7 am then when I get out of bed at lunchtime, is the start of my days off, so you could say its 5.5 days off.

Just spend the days off getting a new kitchen, so had lots to do and could have bought a whole lot of camera gear with the money we spend. Just need to do a bit of painting and wait for the glass splashback then its done.

.I've just completed 25 hours and 50 minutes worth of exposures of a single object in the sky (NGC 7822). There'll be a lot of processing to do, especially as this is my first set of narrowband data in sulphur, oxygen and nitrogen as well as hydrogen so new sets of decisions to make, but I'm not done at the telescope yet as I still need about another hour and a half of exposures using red, green and blue filters to capture the star colours. The forecast suggests that I'll be lucky and get those captured before the Moon becomes a nuisance.

So right now I'm a happy bunny. And the Moon, so often the bane of an astrophotographer's life, will shortly become my friend because as she becomes brighter I may finally get a few good nights of sleep!

I realised last night I haven't done any big shoots at all this year. Nearest I had was a quick walk around a zoo in Germany while waiting for my flight home after working there, and I only took a compact camera!

Bob, I know you have 3nm filters, but I still wonder is it really dark enough? Went to bed after midnight and the sky was still visibly blue, with few stars visible unless close to zenith.

Na, just helping out. I'm in specialty job that usually exempts me from guard duty but the other guys in the office that came up on the list had a special mission to handle so I volunteered. We have a regular guard force but they get one day a week off so the units fill in on those days. In my office we generally work 12 to 15 hour a day shifts, one day a week we work half a day, and Sundays we all get to sleep in a little.

I certainly see the effects of twilight in the first and last subs (I've been starting at 23:30 and finishing by 03:15 BST) but comparing them to the subs taken in the wee small hours there is a good enough signal that I think they are worth keeping. Having 3nm filters must surely be helping as well because, while they let through the full narrowband signal, they cut down on the background (factor of three?) compared to the more common 10nm filters. The OIII (oxygen) seems to be the weakest of the four narrowband signals in NGC7822 and no doubt would benefit from really dark nights but it has been wonderful to get back into astrophotography after the dismal run of weather this year. It looks like I might get a couple of nights off now but the forecast for Wednesday is looking hopeful and all I need is a couple of hours after the Moon has set to capture those RGB shots. Fingers crossed...

Wondering if my new CPS Silver membership is actually going to speed up the repairs on my 7D + lenses. According to Canon the repairs made for a CPS Silver member should be finished within 5 working days, but I have a hard time believing that the repair center (which just has contracts with Canon but isn't an actual Canon department) will stay true to that promise.

Mixed feelings at the moment. On the one side I really want to have my gear back, so I can go back out and make pictures of the local birds and wildlife. On the other hand I really enjoyed myself yesterday with my 40D + 60/2.8 Macro USM. The fixed (and even more so: limited) focal length really was a lot of fun actually, and made me think a lot more of how to take my pictures. I had to get in really close of course, and I kinda liked it.

Hope I will remember the fun I had with a prime when I get my three zooms back .

Today I will send in both the 5D3 and 100-400mm for repairs 5D3 because the joystick has come off (should be a warranty issue right?) and the 100-400 due to faulty IS and malfunctioning zoom tightening ring

I read some reports about the joystick after it happened to me as well. I'm certainly not the only one. They fixed it under warranty and shipped it back the same day. I'm happy about that oneAs for the 100-400mm, I just got an estimated cost of around €700. Not to thrilled about that, but it has to be done

THANK THE LORD! I just finished up the last of our "End of Tour" awards here in Afghanistan. Almost 1000 pictures of just awards presented over 4 sessions. At one point the boss was flexing his hands from pinning the award and shaking hands and I was too from up and down with the camera. I didn't think about it until after the fact, should have used a tripod I hand to coordinate a battle hand-off of the camera in the middle of the ceremony to get mine taken. Yes, I was shooting into almost direct sunlight. We were sweating out a$$'s off in a "Claim-Shell" tent so they had to raise the ends to let some air flow and of course they setup the flag stand right in front of it. This is the first time I shot in pure manual for a long period. I dialed in the exposure for us and ran with it. Lurch over on my left is who I drove for. I love the guy but he is NOT photogenic.

My 7D, 17-40, 70-200 and 100-400 were returned to me last week. The repair center noted on the paperwork that was included that they had found the AF on my 7D to be badly calibrated and they corrected this. Haven't had the chance to confirm whether or not their adjustments improved the issues that I was having, but hopefully all is well now.

Also bought a Manfrotto 055XB Classic to be my tripod for the next couple of years, before I buy a Gitzo carbon tripod. Now at least I can finally use my gimbal head, and can't wait to see if this really improves the sharpness of my pictures like everybody says it will. Does anybody know a site or YouTube-video with a tutorial on sharpness techniques using the gimbal head and tripod? And do I turn off IS on my 100-400, or keep it turned on? I am really torn on this, since I found that on 400mm the image was quite shaky through the viewfinder on the gimbal head with the tripod being perfectly stable.